Clinging to Life

I feel like I’m slowly coming back to the world of the living. I am getting back to my journal after a few days of frenzy and emotional upheaval. Two days of this followed by a day of intense physical work and another of immersing myself in my studies has left me feeling like a head of wilted lettuce. Lack of sleep and constant tension I think is what wreaks the most havoc. But, knowing the woman I was helping is now in a safe place makes, all of it, every tiny little bit of it, worth it.

My hope now is that this family member will be strong enough to stay where she is safe. That she will be able to get the help she needs, to set her on a healing path and that she will be able to fight the booze and drugs demons she used, to bury her pain and herself with. She deserves better than that. No one, no matter who they are or what they’ve done deserves to be beaten – no one!

It saddens me to know that there are many other women like her who get beaten every day. In fact, I’m sure it’s happening right now as I’m writing these very words and the thought of that breaks my heart. As it’s broken my heart to witness the destruction and devastation it has caused this member of our family. I know how deep the scars run and how thick they become over time. I can hear the desperation behind the voice which says, “I can’t keep on. I can’t do this anymore.”

When I hold a sobbing, 40 year old woman in my arms, who is out of control and literally scared for her life and all she can manage to say through the tears is, “all I want is to be loved”, my heart shatters in a million pieces along with hers.

At times like that I wish I could turn the clocks back. I wish I could help the person start over with a clean slate. I wish I could help them touch the self that was there before the first shove, or blow to the head, blackened eye or boot in the ribs ever took place. I wish I could transform the wounds created by the abuse, the ones meant to drive home a diminishing sense of self until there was nothing left but a shell. No one, absolutely no one deserves this and no one, absolutely no one, has the right to do this to someone else!

Yes, I wish I could turn the clock back 17 years and give this person a fresh start that would have led her to hold the vision of who she was and who she could be. I wish I could change the first time she picked up a drink or the first time she took a drag on some weed in the hope that it would somehow make her pain go away. Yes, I wish I could do all that but I know I can’t.

All I can do is meet her where she is today and give her whatever I can to help her move forward from here. All I can do is support her and encourage her, hold her shaking body, wipe her endless tears, bring her to the doctor to patch up her injuries and whisk her away to safety while all the time reassuring her that she is indeed doing the right thing. All the time reassuring her that she is strong, she can do this, that we love her, that she is indeed a good person and she has as much right as anyone else to live.

It is hard for someone, who, as one of my friends so adequately said, “is feeling lower than a snake’s belly” to believe that they are worthy and that there are people who support them, love them, and who believe in them, even when they don’t have the strength to believe in themselves.

It’s hard when who this person is, gets buried so deep under the emotional and physical bruises and scars, she no longer has any clue of who she is. All she knows is that she is consumed by the fear of living the rest of her life alone and that this fear has become so huge, so all encompassing that even getting the crap beaten out of her is better than being on her own. And this is what the perpetrator thrives on. He makes sure that he strips everything from her. Every little bit of self-esteem and self-respect there is, making sure every word and every blow he delivers wipes her slate clean of any self-worth she may have left hiding in a corner somewhere.

I don’t think there is anything sadder in this world then to see a person who has lost their sense of self. To witness the destruction which happens to a person lost in a world of drugs, booze and abusive relationships. It’s like watching someone literally disappear from life one inch at a time. The person no longer knows where they begin and where they end or why they’re here.

My hope now is that she will not fall back under this abuser’s spell. My hope is that she will hang on to the ray of hope which came calling from the depths of her soul, when she decided to take things into her own hands and run. My hope is that the support she felt during the intervention of the past few days will continue to grow for her. My hope is that she will recognize, she can do this and that she really is, as she said, “through with the lies.” My hope is that she will be able to hang on long enough to start seeing a tiny little glimpse of who she really is - that she will begin to touch the truth and the beauty of the person who lies beneath the ugliness of the pain and the scars.